*CIAO 4.4 and CALDB 4.4.7 released 15 December 2011*
==================================================
The Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) is pleased to announce that version 4.4
of CIAO ("Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations") and version
4.4.7 of CALDB ("Calibration Database") are available for download from:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/
Notable changes and improvements in CIAO 4.4:
* The new*acis_find_afterglow* identifies cosmic-ray afterglows and hot pixels
for TIMED mode observations.
This tool should be used in place of acis_run_hotpix for all analyses.
This tool improves over previous algorithms by identifying shorter afterglows with possibly
larger gaps between frames.
The chandra_repro script has been updated to use the new tool.
* The*wavdetect* tool takes an observation-specific PSF map file
- created by mkpsfmap - instead of using the Chandra PSF table data or the tool's
internal parameterization of the ROSAT PSF.
* The*addresp* tool has been updated to combine grating response files and to
create output RSP files. The new functionality is available via the
combine_spectra script as well.
* An updated*asphist* algorithm uses the full tangent plane offset computations and to
correct angle between pointing and North. Both of these affect data that have been
reprojected to different tangent points and/or multi-obi observations with significantly
different pointings.
* The*ChIPS graphical user interface* (GUI) allows users to adjust the layout of their
plots and make edits to many of the plot properties. A Python terminal is built into
the GUI, allowing access to ChIPS and other Python commands. The GUI is available to
any process that creates a ChIPS plot, such as Sherpa and Prism.
* Bayesian Analysis with*pyBLoCXS*: the pyBLoCXS module is now integrated into Sherpa.
pyBLoCXS is a sophisticated Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based algorithm designed
to carry out Bayesian Low-Count X-ray Spectral (BLoCXS) analysis in the Sherpa environment.
** Fitting Template Models* to 1D Data: Sherpa supports a new template model
(an extension of table model). Sherpa can now read in a collection of templates from a
directory full of template files, and can compare a data set to all the templates in that collection.
* The*Monte Carlo optimization method* has been significantly improved, and can now
find more reasonable parameter values in cases where it formerly came up against
parameter limits. The*LMDIF* optimization method has also been updated to avoid getting
"stuck" at the parameter space boundaries for certain cases.
Read the complete CIAO 4.4 release notes, including the section "How
CIAO 4.4 and CALDB 4.4.7 Affect Your Analysis" at:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/ciao_4.4_release.html
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CIAO 4.4 is distributed for the following platforms:
* Linux 32-bit and 64-bit
* Mac OS X Intel 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion) 32-bit and 64-bit
More details athttp://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/platforms.html
-----------------------------------
In tandem with CIAO 4.4 is the release of the Chandra Calibration
Database version 4.4.7.
The CalDB 4.4.7 upgrade is a cumulative upgrade to CalDB 4.3.x and
requires CIAO 4.3 or later version.
CalDB 4.4.7 includes the following new items:
ACIS T_GAIN Epoch 47
HRC-I GMAPS 2010, 2011
HRC-I PIGBSPEC 2010, 2011
HRC-S Quantum Efficiency Version 11
PIMMS Cycle 14 Effective Areas
HETG Grating Efficiency (GREFF) version N0007
Detailed information can be found in the Chandra
Calibration Database website athttp://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/
----------------------------------------
As always please send questions and requests for enhancements to the CXC
HELPDESK (http://cxc.harvard.edu/helpdesk/).
CIAO 4.4 is a collaborative effort between the SAO/CXC Science Data
Systems, the SAO/CXC Data Systems, and MIT/CXC personnel.
Antonella Fruscione (for the CIAO development team)
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